First off, there's the fact that, for all the vague talks of "threats," the only real evidence of "cyberattacks" to date all seem to point to the US. So, if we're worried about attacks directed back at us, perhaps we shouldn't have kicked off the effort by showing the rest of the world how it's done. And, no, Senator Feinstein, the problem isn't the leak, but the action. As Harper points out:

The likelihood of attacks having extraordinary consequences is low. This talk of “cyberwar” and “cyberterror” is the ugly poetry of budget-building in Washington, D.C. But watch out for U.S. cyberbellicosity coming home to roost. The threat environment is developing in response to U.S. aggression.

This parallels the United States’ use of nuclear weapons, which made “the bomb” (Dmitri) an essential tool of world power. Rightly or wrongly, the United States’ use of the bomb spurred the nuclear arms race and triggered nuclear proliferation challenges that continue today. (To repeat: Cyberattacks can have nothing like the consequence of nuclear weapons.)

Of course, the "urgency" that we keep hearing about is almost certainly political. Should some attack actually happen, no politician wants to give his or her opponents the opportunity to point to their failure to pass "do something!" cybersecurity legislation during a campaign. As Harper points out, the real fear from politicians isn't a cyberattack, it's a political attack:

Senator Reid has gone hook, line, and sinker for the “cyber-9/11″ idea, of course. Like all politicians, his primary job is not to set appropriate cybersecurity policies but to re-elect himself and members of his party. The tiniest risk of a cyberattack making headlines to use against his party justifies expending taxpayer dollars, privacy, and digital liberties. This it not to prevent “cyber” attack. It is to prevent political attack.

He then goes on to highlight a bunch of former government officials who sent a letter to Senate leaders urging them to pass cybersecurity legislation "as soon as possible" since it's "critically necessary to protect our national and economic security." Of course, what the signatories of that letter really mean is that they want to protect their own "economic security." Every one of them has moved to the private sector and is in a position to profit greatly from a freakout over cybersecurity...

And yes, in answer to the URL I mentioned at the beginning, using cyber does, in fact, make you look like an idiot in most cases. But for the amount of profit and spying power at stake? It doesn't seem like many in DC care that much.

Tell it like it is

I think the issue is mainly that making a threat appear larger than it really is usually makes you more popular, the "common enemy" against which people all rally behind a "champion", as with Bush and Blair against Saddam. The issue is less that politicians are actually worried that they might be blamed if things go wrong.

With everyone on the internet these days and our meat-space wars starting to be as unpopular as Vietnam at its height, why not move the justification for ludicrous "defense" spending to the one place that most people don't fully understand? The internet is confusing to most of the people who use it.

Mass hysteria, dogs and cats living together...

...real old-testament stuff...but where was I?

Ah, yes. We have arrived at the point in time where fear-mongering over cyber-armageddon is being relentlessly flogged 24x7 in an attempt to line the pockets of the pigs at the trough and their pet lobbyists. Yes, yes, of course yes, a bill MUST be passed, it simply must, otherwise the 3Q P&L statements will suffer. So trample the rights of the citizens, ignore the real problems in favor of imagined ones, and let's, by all means, ram through legislation written by clueless fucksticks like Dutch "computers run on X's and O's" Ruppersberger.

Cyberrecursion

This cyberoveremphasis on the cyberprefix "cyber" could cyberlead to some interesting cyberrecursion. When cyberself-anointed cyberpoliticians cyberfind that not enough cyberemphasis is being placed on cyberissues relating to cyberthreats, the cyberprefix "cyber" will be cyberadded to the cyberbeginning of every cyberword. "Cyberwar" is always the first cybercasuality, so it will cyberbecome "cybercyberwar", then "cybercybercyberwar", cyberetc.
In cybershort, cyberthink of the cyberchildren! Please, Cyber-I cyberbeg cyber-you!

Re: Cyberrecursion

Cyber not the only silly

Using "cyber" to thump the drum is pretty silly but the folks in DC think that they can't do no silly.

But tactical gets misused I relly like the tactical bra and thong.

Organic also gets misused. My favorites so far are: firewood, windshield washer fluid and vodka (in the US vodka is neutral grain spirits it can't contain any thing but water and ethanol;unless its flavored.